Down The Cottage Path

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

You know, as if it's not bad enough to have boring weather and the endless heat in the summer; the monotonous gravel pit landscape; the endless tile roofs; the crazy political three ring circus...now we have 18,000 idiots who are petitioning to secede Arizona from the Union!

People, it will NEVER be 1950 again! Our world has changed, sometimes for the better, sometimes not, but like it or not it is never going back to the way it was. Which was wonderful if you were white, middle class, and Christian, but not so great if you were anyone else! And I suspect that the ones that want it to be 1950 again are...white, middle class, and Christian and grew up in that era. They were certainly the dominant group in the Romney supporters in the recent election.

This might sound ironic coming from someone who loves vintage stuff, but I wouldn't want to actually LIVE in 1950. There are elements of it, sure. I wish we were still truly patriotic. I wish we dressed more nicely, and behaved in a more civilized fashion in public places. I wish porn and its ilk were still something you could hardly find, not splashed all over the newstands. I wish we still had the bulk of our manufacturing jobs in this country, not overseas. I wish our careers didn't get in the way of raising our children properly.

But given all that, I don't wish that women still had few choices besides motherhood and housewifery. I don't wish that people of color were segregated and despised. I don't wish gays and lesbians had to hide their true selves and not marry the people they love. I don't wish people of other faiths were considered strange and dangerous. And I don't wish the internet away!

Those issues in the second group are hugely important and can't just be swept back into the cupboard. We've just come too far. And rightfully so! You can't have the small minority of white men running the world. Even if you want it that way. I so wish you didn't...

So, what's going to happen with these secessionists? Probably the same thing that always happens - we'll be the laughingstock of the country for awhile, fodder for every satiric news talk show, and then it'll die down and something ELSE crazy will come up.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Reading Facebook often scares the bejeezus out of me. I get insight into people that I never had before, and frankly, some of it is disgusting. Someone I worked with at church thinks the movie "2016" is full of truth and that helping the poor is opening the door to communism. Others insist that all people on welfare are just slackers. When did we become such an ugly nation of mean, greedy people? So, yes, I'm on my soapbox again today. I was so upset by smarmy Mitt Moneybags in the debate last night that this is what came out.

A Day in the Life of a Poor KidYou get your little sister up, because your mom has already left for one of the three jobs she works because your dad left after your sister was born because he didn’t want the responsibility of a family. Your mom had to leave school at 16 because her dad died and she had to help keep the family together, but that means she never makes much money. There’s only a little dry cereal left, so you give it to your sister and take her to the neighbor who will walk her to school. You walk a mile to the bus stop because funding cuts took away the school bus. On the city bus, the other kids make fun of you because you smell. You smell because the laundry is three blocks away, and also there was no money for it this week because your sister got a bad ear infection and had to go to the doctor. The bus gets stuck in traffic, so you’re too late to school for the free breakfast, so you are hungry, and you’re tired because one of the neighbors deci...

ded to start firing a gun and your mom made you and your sister sleep on the floor in case bullet came through the wall. Lunch will be your only real meal of the day, but it’s so embarrassing to have to show the free lunch card. Your mom keeps saying that they’re going to cut the lunch program, and you wonder what you’ll do then. After school, you work at a grocery store to try and help the family, but part of your earnings have to go to pay the neighbor who watches your sister. Your boss gives you some fruit and vegetables that he was going to throw out, so that is dinner because your mom doesn’t get paid until tomorrow. Because you worked after school, you have to stay up late to get your homework done, which is hard because the neighbor is yelling again, and you’re hungry, and you’re tired. You don’t have a computer, so you’ll have to get up extra early the next morning to get to school to use the old one in the library, because your teacher insists that you can’t turn in handwritten work. You wonder if you’ll ever be able to go to college. You wonder if your life will always be this hard.

Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. The Bible also says, "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land."

Friday, October 5, 2012

I was running around packing and cleaning to get ready to fly back to Indiana to see my dad and other mother, and to Cape Cod to see my mom, and when I went to dump a load of laundry in the machine I discovered a bag from JoAnn sitting on top. When I looked in, I groaned. Why? Because there, sitting in the bag, forgotten, were the makings for a 40's style hat that I had promised Elder Progeny I would make for her this week so I could mail it to her before I left. Ugh.

So, I sat down at the sewing machine and started. And what happened was this - I had fun. I realized that I really miss those days before Halloween, when I would be frantically trying to finish not one but two costumes by the day of the class party (except in the year when I made American Girl doll costumes to MATCH the girls' costumes AND made a Holly Golightly costume for our babysitter. Nuts. Majorly mental. I was also working almost full time and volunteering for everything under the sun. Those days are LONG gone....) But I enjoyed those days - loved the whole process from picking out the costume pattern on through the end.

In fact, it's only because of those costumes of yore that I had buckram around instead of having to go buy it today in the midst of crazy packing! How many people do YOU know who have buckram in their house?! (For those of you who don't know, buckram is heavy open weave cotton that has been stiffened with starch. It's used for lining, to help things keep their shape.)

Anyway, here's the (almost) finished product. EP still needs to put on a frill of netting and the elastic strap to hold it on.

Monday, September 17, 2012

AOL this a.m. had a story about Victoria Jackson and a comment that she made about homosexuality. Do you remember her? That cute little blond that used to be on Saturday Night Live? Well, she's not so cute anymore, having become a vocal shill for the Tea Party. She was making a comment that you hear from the far right all the time, about homosexuality being a sin.

I did a little research on Miss Victoria, and then went to her Facebook page and posted a comment along the lines of this: You say the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin. The Bible ALSO says that divorce is a sin, yet you are divorced. Can you explain the difference?

Instead of having the guts to defend her position (not surprising, because it's pretty indefensible!) she deleted the post within about a minute and a half.

Seems to me that there's another quote...something about not throwing stones unless you are spotless of sin yourself. Now, where does that come from? It'll come to me in a minute....

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Summer. When I was growing up in Ohio, summer seemed to last forever. I don't ever remember being hot, except once in a while at night, and then I would take a wet washcloth to bed with me and wave it in front of the fan to get it colder. We would play outside all afternoon and come, running, at dinner, bright red, and gulp down as many glasses of ice cold milk as we could get away with. (Usually it was two, then Mom would tell me I had to make the third one last as it was all I would get.) Then, out we went again, until the fireflies began to light up the darkness, and my dad's whistle would sound. My dad could whistle so loud we could hear it across all three streets that made up our little development that had been carved out of someone's farmland. He would whistle, and we knew we had better get up to the house, or we were in big trouble. We'd finish up in the bathtub, and then, if we were lucky, we could watch t.v. in our pajamas until bedtime.

Here in Arizona, summer really DOES last forever. It hit 100 degrees on April 12 this year, and it's likely to keep hitting - and breaking - the 100 mark until at least October. Yet in my mind, it's the end of summer. We're eating the last of the sweet corn and peaches, and soon the apples will appear, courtesy of cooler places.

For dinner tonight, we had hamburgers cooked in my new (old) Farberware pan. I found it at a Salvation Army in Massachusetts this summer for $2. I am slowly replacing all of my "modern" pans with good old cast aluminum pans. They are hard to find in good condition, though, and cost a fortune, usually. I've gotten lucky three times, though. I have a wonderful old Dutch oven I got from a woman in Mansfield, Ohio, of all places (we used to live there!) for $5 plus shipping on eBay. She got it from her mother-in-law when she got married in 1953 and her MIL got it for HER wedding in the 30's. It cooks like a dream, with consistent heat, and can hold even the biggest pot roast. I could even do a turkey in it!

My other find was a big sauce pan. It was $1.99 at one of my favorite thrift shops in Petoskey, Michigan, which is near our cottage on Walloon Lake. Now I need to find some lids!

I love cooking with and serving on my vintage stuff. I feel a wonderful connection to the women of the past.

Have you read Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg? It's set just after WWII, and follows a family in a town in Missouri through the present. It's wonderful, but sad, because you see how the town changes - and not for the better. If I were a millionaire, I would buy up property and give out loans and help people build back the downtowns of yesteryear. Small businesses, family businesses, those are the building blocks of a wonderful community.

I'm rambling...anyway...enjoy the fruits and veg of summer because they'll be gone before you know it. Pull out your grama's old dishes and set a lovely table. You'll be surprised how great it feels!

Friday, August 31, 2012

I find it appalling that a candidate for vice president would go on national t.v. and use half-truths, misdirections, and outright lies to denounce the current president and then claim that his team will not lie to the American people! In his speech at the Republican convention - that auto plant he seems to be accusing the president of closing? It closed BEFORE Obama even took office. The money he claims the president is pulling from Medicare? His plan pulls the exact same amount - and both plans pull it from providers NOT customers, i.e., US. That commission that he said Obama ignored? Ryan voted against their recommendations! The list goes on and on. Don't believe me? Go to www.factcheck.org, which is a nonpartisan fact checking website and see.

Barney Frank says,"Paul Ryan is a rigid far-right ideologue and a clever politician. That’s a dangerous combination -- especially in an election where ultraconservative billionaires like the Koch Brothers are spending millions to ensure that their extreme right-wing agenda becomes a reality. We have to do everything we can to expose Romney and Ryan’s plans to slash the social safety net for seniors, children, and pretty much everyone else to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. Unlike some of these Tea Party Republicans, Ryan understands that much of what he wants to do is very unpopular with the American people. He’ll do everything he can to avoid the specifics of his plans to end Medicare, privatize Social Security, and give Mitt Romney a 1% tax rate."This "trickle down" nonsense has been tried, and failed. Reagan insisted that cutting taxes would spur private industry and ended up with the biggest deficit to date. Only when Clinton came to office and raised taxes did the deficit go away. We've been down this road before and we know what will happen if we do this again. This time, though, we have such a huge deficit that we just can't risk failure, messing around with fiscal policies that have already been proven to be failures!This campaign is crucial to our future. It doesn't matter to me if you're a Republican or a Democrat. Just don't rely on ANYONE to tell the truth. Check for yourself the accusations people are making. Only then can you make a truly informed decision.